Herpetological Review 39(3), 2008 310
Herpetological Review, 2008, 39(3), 310–314.
© 2008 by Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles
Finding a Needle in a Haystack: New Methods of
Locating and working with Rhinoceros Vipers
(Bitis rhinoceros)
JOHANNES PENNER
Department of Animal Ecology and Tropical Biology, University of Würzburg
Biocenter, Am Hubland, D-97074 Würzburg, Germany
e-mail: penner@biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de
CéCILE FRUTEAU
Laboratoire d’Ethologie des Primates, CEPE, 7 rue de l’Université
67000 Strasbourg, France
FRIEDERIKE RANGE
Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania
3815 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-6169, USA
Current address: Department of Neurobiology and Cognition Research
University of Vienna, Althanstrasse 14, A-1091 Wien, Austria
and
MARK-OLIVER RöDEL
Department of Animal Ecology and Tropical Biology, University of Würzburg
Biocenter, Am Hubland, D-97074 Würzburg, Germany
Current address: Museum of Natural History, Humboldt University Berlin,
Herpetology, Invalidenstrasse 43, D-10115 Berlin, Germany
e-mail: mo.roedel@mseum.hu-berlin.de
Large snake species are important predators in their ecosystems
(Dodd 1987; Greene 1997; Lawson and Klemens 2001).
Rhinoceros Vipers (Viperidae: Bitis rhinoceros, Schlegel, 1855)
are among the biggest and most massive venomous snakes (Phelps
1981). Taxonomically they are closely related to the Gaboon Viper,
Bitis gabonica (Duméril et al. 1854), and were long considered
to be only a subspecies of the latter. A sister species to these two
taxa is the Nose-horned Viper, Bitis nasicornis (Calvete et al.